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You can't buy a hybrid cloud as a product nor as a service, and even if you could you would need to customise it for your unique requirements and constraints. The reality today is you need to buy the ingredients from a supplier then roll your own hybrid cloud and to manage this you need to put in place a Hybrid Cloud Manifesto.

The SPC-2 benchmark is a useful benchmark for bandwidth intensive sequential workloads, such as backup, ETL (extraction, translate, load) and large-scale analytics. Wikibon does a deep comparative analysis of the SPC-2 results, time-adjusting the pricing information to correct for different publication dates. Wikibon then analyses performance and price-performance together, and develops a guide to enable practitioners to understand the business options and best strategic fit. Wikibon concludes the Oracle ZS4-4 storage appliance dominates this high-bandwidth processing as of the best combination of good performance and great price performance at the high-end and mid-range of this market.

The thesis of the overall Wikibon research in this area is that within 2 years, the majority of IT installations will be moving to combine workloads together to share data using NAND flash as the only active storage media. This will save on IT budget and improve IT productivity, especially in the IT development function. Our research shows that these changes have the potential to reduce the typical IT budget by 34% over a five year period while delivering the same functionality to the business. The projected IT savings of moving to a shared-data all-flash datacenter for an organization with a $40M IT budget are $38M over 5 years, with an IRR of 246%, an annual ROI of 542%, and a breakeven of 13 months. Future research will look at the potential to maximize the contribution of IT to the business, and will conclude that IT budgets should increase to deliver historic improvements in internal productivity and increased business potential.

The Public Cloud market is still forming – but seems to be poised to soon enter the Early Majority stage of its development where user behavior, preferences, and strategies become more stable. Large enterprises are more discerning of Public Cloud IaaS offerings. Test and development appears to be a key entry point for them since scale, operational complexity, and security/compliance/regulatory demands require a more nuanced approach to Public Cloud for IaaS. Small and Medium enterprises have the greatest need for Public Cloud and should consider well-established, lower risk entry points to Public Cloud like SaaS, Email, and Web Applications before venturing into Mission Critical and IaaS workloads to help them navigate an increasingly complex and costly IT infrastructure environment.

China Just Destroyed The Last Remnants Of Internet Freedom

China has never been the easiest place to surf the net anonymously, but now it’s become virtually impossible following the government’s most recent move to tighten its iron grip on web usage.

Earlier today, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress announced its decision to approve a proposed “identity management policy”, requiring that all internet users register with their real names when signing up with a mobile carrier or online provider.

According to Li Fei, deputy director of the Commission for Legislative Affairs of the Standing Committee, the committee did take into account concerns raised by members of the public that the new rules could be detrimental to the exposure of corruption cases and the public’s ability to criticize the government online, reports Xinhua.

Numerous instances of corruption involving Chinese officials have been exposed online, and the fears are that the new rules would make it easier for authorities to track down anyone who posts such stories.

However, Mr. Li dismissed these concerns, saying that identity management would be done “backstage”, meaning that users could continue to post under pseudonyms on websites.

Unfortunately, the concerns don’t end there. Under the new regulations, Chinese service providers will now be compelled to remove any content posted online that the government deems to be “illegal”. In addition, service providers will also be required to turn over all information regarding illegal content to the government, which will then be able to track down and punish those responsible.

During its announcement, the committee also reminded citizens that they have a responsibility to report any illegal online information that they stumble across to the relevant authorities.

Xinhua’s report doesn’t explicitly state what kind of content could be considered ‘illegal’, but China’s government is known to take a dim view of anything perceived as criticism of the communist party or its leaders. In attention, it operates a zero-tolerance policy with regard to adult websites.

China goes as far as to paint the new regulations as being in the best interest of web users, claiming that they will “help to protect digital information and user’s privacy”. In line with this, the new rules also make it illegal for the government and service providers to provide user data to third parties, says Xinhua.

“When people exercise their rights, including the right to use the Internet, they must do so in accordance with the law and constitution, and not harm the legal rights of the state, society…or other citizens.”

About Mike Wheatley

Mike Wheatley is a senior staff writer at SiliconANGLE. He loves to write about Big Data and the Internet of Things, and explore how these technologies are evolving and helping businesses to become more agile.
Before joining SiliconANGLE, Mike was an editor at Argophilia Travel News, an occassional contributer to The Epoch Times, and has also dabbled in SEO and social media marketing. He usually bases himself in Bangkok, Thailand, though he can often be found roaming through the jungles or chilling on a beach.
Got a news story or tip? Email Mike@SiliconANGLE.com.